


Dead Guys Don't Always Finish Last

by exbex



Category: Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006), due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-07
Updated: 2010-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-13 02:28:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbex/pseuds/exbex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A/N:  All you need to know about Wristcutters, if you haven't seen it, is that the movie is a darkly comic romance and that the premise involves an afterlife for suicide victims that is a more dismal version of pre-suicide life.  Tom Waits plays Kneller, a sort of guide who helps people out who are willing to seek something better.<br/>Warnings:  Although this is ultimately dark humor with a dose of fluff and a happy ending, this story does deal with suicide.  There are no graphic descriptions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Guys Don't Always Finish Last

There were several things about this afterlife that Ray hated, notably the fact that he was driving a charred version of a Buick Riviera, his terrible job as a traffic cop in the desert, and the awful bars where his cranberry juice was extra bitter. These were the things that he would expect to hate; it was the unexpected things that really brought him down, such as the fact that there was no way to smile, which was, somehow, even worse than not having anything to smile about, and there was no loud, Italian family anywhere within his vicinity.   
**  
The day Renfield Turnbull walked into the bar was the day everything began to change. Ray first had to get over the initial shock of seeing Turnbull there. He had suspected that the suicide-afterlife was a Canadian-free zone. After the shock wore off, Ray was just relieved to see a familiar face. Well, a familiar non-Vegas face anyway. He sidled up next to Turnbull, who looked bewildered in jeans and a dingy t-shirt. It took a moment for Turnbull to recognize him. He blinked in surprise. "Detective Vecchio?"  
"Yeah, Turnbull. It's me." Ray paused. "How long have you been here?"  
"Oh. Well, um…" Turnbull glanced around to find a clock, which was remarkably easy, seeing as clock-watching was a common habit in this afterlife. "An hour or two, I think."  
Ray raised an eyebrow. "Big shock, isn't it? But I guess it's better than the eternal hellfires I was taught would be waiting for me." He shrugged.  
Turnbull just blinked. "I expected nothing."  
Ray nodded. "Never really thought much about what came next, huh?"  
"No, I mean, I thought I would simply cease to exist." Turnbull paused. "I hoped I would simply cease to exist."  
And there was nothing, of course, that Ray could say to that.  
**  
The next time Ray saw Turnbull he was fishing out of a truly pitiful little pond. Ray knew why his wretched afterlife was being spent in a desert. As far as Turnbull, all he could figure was that it was about as opposite from the beautiful snows of Canada as possible. Ray felt a twinge of indignation at this (a slight twinge, as intense bouts of emotion were apparently as impossible and forbidden as smiling was). Ray knew this was a suicide-afterlife, but he had kind of figured people landed themselves there because they had done something pretty bad prior to their untimely ends. What the hell could Turnbull have possibly done?  
There was, of course, nothing to say, so Ray just found himself a fishing pole and joined him. Turnbull turned to him and Ray could've sworn there was a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, if such a thing would have been possible.  
**  
Ray finally asked the first of the two dreaded questions at the bar, while Turnbull was staring into a plastic cup of truly tepid water.  
"Why'd you do it?" Ray asked, carefully not looking at him.  
Turnbull looked at him as if the answer should be obvious. "Why wouldn't I?"  
Ray stuttered for a moment. "Well…" He wracked his brain, but euphemisms were starkly absent in this afterlife. Turnbull just nodded. "Nobody needed me." He went back to staring at his water.  
"I need…" Ray frantically tried to come up with something. "A roommate," he finished. Things couldn't get any worse, he figured, except for maybe the disheartened look on Turnbull's face, which, admittedly, didn't vary much from the look on anyone else's face in this place, but was having a strange effect on Ray nevertheless.  
Turnbull stared at him for a long, awkward moment. "Okay," he said finally.  
**  
The latter of the two dreaded questions was asked a few nights after Turnbull moved in to Ray's cardboard box sized apartment. They were eating takeout pizza, which was possibly the best thing about this afterlife, in spite of the tomato sauce that had the taste and texture of catsup, and cheese that didn't quite seem to melt all the way. They were watching Ray didn't know what on television (TV was the weirdest thing in the afterlife; everything seemed to have cats in it). There was no good way to broach the subject, so Ray waited until a commercial break (which was not long, since there were far more commercials in the afterlife than there had been while Ray had been alive).  
"Did you hear? About me?"  
Turnbull nodded very slowly before turning to face Ray. "I went to your funeral."  
Ray grimaced, thinking of the self-inflicted bullet wound. "Closed casket, right?"  
Turnbull grimaced back. "Yes, Ray."  
"Was it pretty bad? You know, with my family?" One thing that this afterlife was not short on was time to think, to consider just what he'd done, how he hadn't been thinking clearly, and all the guilt that came along with it. He wasn't even sure why he was asking; he knew he wasn't going to like the answer.  
"Yes, Ray. Francesca, particularly was…" Turnbull apparently remembered something that he figured Ray wouldn't want to hear, as he clammed up and looked away, eyes glued to the television.  
Ray winced. "Shit. Frannie. How was she holding up afterward?" He paused. "Wait, why aren't you looking at me?"  
Turnbull began to turn several different shades of red.  
Which was how they ended up in the bathroom, with Turnbull trying to hold Ray off with a broom. "You had sex with my sister! After my funeral! You took. Advantage. Of. My. Grieving. Sister. You fucking pig!"  
"Ray, Ray, please. Your sister; she's a very persistent woman. My only intention was to comfort her. I didn't plan for it to lead to-comforting her."  
Ray stopped for a moment and glared. "I thought you said nobody needed you."  
Turnbull blinked and looked, if possible, even more morose. "Well, that was only one day."  
Ray paused, then glared again, hissing through his teeth. "You had a one night stand with my sister."  
"To be fair, Ray, I think she had a one night stand with me." He paused. "Which would likely never have happened, had it not been for your decision to shoot yourself." He looked defiantly at Ray.  
Ray thought about clearing the broomstick and strangling Turnbull, but then deflated. Frannie was an adult, after all. Besides, Turnbull was right.  
It wasn't until later, after Ray had gone to bed, that he had an epiphany of sorts. (The afterlife wasn't exactly short on insomnia). That moment that Turnbull had given him that defiant look, he had seemed…attractive. He tried to brush it off, but that led to other thoughts. Turnbull was so…kind. He was always trying to do little things to make other people feel better, like holding open doors and picking things up for people. It was perhaps, completely fruitless in this place, but you had to admire the effort.  
**  
Ray only ruminated over this surprise development for a day or two. Any fears over hellfire and brimstone were quickly dismissed, seeing as a) he was already dead and 2) conventional ideas of the afterlife had obviously been incorrect. Any squeamishness about getting physical with another guy were hardly given a thought, seeing as the thought of getting physical with anyone in this afterlife, and possibly even enjoying it, was rather novel.  
"What's eating you, Ray?" Kneller, the bartender asked as he set Ray's cranberry juice in front of him. Ray looked up, surprised. Kneller was known for his philosophical quips occasionally, but it was unusual for him to ask a direct question, not to mention the fact that most people didn't see the point in asking such a question.  
"I want to have sex with my roommate."  
Kneller stopped wiping the glass in his hand for a moment to stare at Ray. "This is an unexpected development. Have you told him yet?"  
"Nah, I was figuring out how to broach the subject."  
Kneller returned to wiping the glass in his hand. "Well buddy, you got nothing but time."  
It was, indeed, about the only thing Ray did have.  
**  
There weren't really any stars in the afterlife sky, but Turnbull liked to lie on the roof and pretend, so Ray had taken up the habit with him. It occurred to Ray to ask a question he would have dreaded asking if he had thought of it, and upon thinking of it, he couldn't believe he hadn't given it a thought at all.   
"What about Fraser?"  
Turnbull looked at him, slightly surprised. "Constable Fraser? He's doing well. He and Detective Kowalski settled somewhere near Tuktoyaktuk."  
"Yeah, I know about that. I mean, did he hear about it?"  
Turnbull's countenance darkened. "Yes. He and Detective Kowalski attended your funeral." Turnbull paused. "He was devastated."  
Ray felt what color he had drain from his face. "Shit. Benny."  
Turnbull furrowed his brow. "Ray, the entire 27th precinct was at your funeral. Leftenant Welsh looked older and more tired than I'd ever seen him. Ray, you left a lot of people behind."  
Ray sighed. "I know. I just wasn't exactly in a position to think about that at the time."  
Turnbull nodded. "I think about my funeral all the time." He paused. "I assume I can count on one hand the number of people who were there. Of course I realize now that I really had no reason…I mean, I may have been invisible, but I was alive."  
Ray let a moment of silence pass before responding. "Well, I'm glad you're here." He winced at how that sounded. "What I mean is, you're not invisible to me." It was surprisingly natural to reach down and take Turnbull's hand.  
"I'm glad I found you," Turnbull whispered back, and gave Ray's hand a squeeze.  
**  
It turned out that kissing wasn't impossible in the afterlife, just ridiculously awful. It took Ray a while to work up the courage to make a move (whether this was some kind of junior high type awkwardness set up especially for this afterlife or the fact that it was Turnbull, or the whole same-sex thing, Ray wasn't sure), but this wasn't exactly Ray's first cookout, so he managed to nail the timing, though not the suaveness. Turnbull was perfectly receptive, and kissed back, with as much enthusiasm as was possible in this place.  
It fell completely flat. It was like pressing lips against a fencepost or something, albeit it a softer one.  
Ray didn't even have enough energy to feel disappointed. So things just carried on, and nothing really changed, which left things okay between them, but that was about as un-okay as it got.  
**  
"What's wrong, Ray?" This time Kneller was wiping down the bar, and again, it struck Ray as a strange question to ask in this place.  
"I failed at kissing Turnbull."  
"Uh huh. So things are different between you two now?"  
"No, that's kind of the problem. Things are the same, and that's fine, except it's not."  
Kneller was wiping down the bar more slowly. "So you're saying, you're not just content."  
Ray looked up and furrowed his brow. "Well, no. But what am I supposed to do about it?"  
"What would you do about it if you could?"  
Ray blinked, and thought for a long moment. "I guess I'd do everything over again."  
Kneller nodded. "Including….?"  
"Including getting to know Turnbull while we were alive, yeah." Ray paused and took a sip before looking quizzically at Kneller. "But wouldn't everyone around here do the same thing?"  
Kneller raised an eyebrow. "You mean do it all over again? Take their lives back?"  
"Yeah."  
Kneller shook his head. "You'd be surprised."  
**  
Ray took the long way home, thinking about what Kneller had said, and how he would do everything over again, if it were possible. He'd pulled that trigger just wanting the pain to stop, not even thinking about who would have found his body or the pain he'd leave behind. He thought of Frannie and felt even worse. Of all the people he'd abandoned, he'd probably abandoned her the most.  
There was nothing to be done. Except maybe make things just a little better here.  
He walked into the apartment to find Turnbull washing dishes by hand (the dishwasher never worked in this place, no matter how many times Ray tried to fix it). Ray walked up to him and put his hand in the dirty water, sliding his fingers in between Turnbull's. Turnbull looked into his eyes, and Ray held his gaze, but even the eyes couldn't really smile here. Still, it was almost, almost something good.  
Suddenly everything blurred, and he felt like he was going to pass out, like he was slipping away. He tried to say Turnbull's name. It looked like Turnbull was having the same difficulty, and his blue eyes were wide with fear.  
Ray opened his eyes. He was standing in his bedroom again. He froze and listened to the sounds of the street outside for a long moment. He lay the gun down on the bedside table and went into the bathroom, sticking his head beneath the tap. He turned on the cold water and let it run over his head and into his eyes for several minutes. He straightened up, toweled off, and looked in the mirror, drawing a hand across his face.  
"I'm alive," he said.  
Ray walked back into the bedroom and emptied his gun, dismantled it, and locked it in the gun safe.  
"I'm alive," he said again. He couldn't help but grin. He walked out of his bedroom toward the front door and almost ran into Frannie in his enthusiasm.  
"Hey, would you watch-" she was caught short as he grabbed her and hugged her tightly. She pulled back, a bewildered look in her eyes. "Ray, what on earth…?"  
"I love you. So much." He kissed her on the cheek and headed for the door. "I'll be back in time for dinner," he called over his shoulder.  
**  
Ray found Turnbull sitting on the steps of the Canadian Consulate, not in the red serge, but looking relaxed, happy, and impossibly beautiful in jeans and a grey t-shirt.  
When he looked at Ray and broke into a wide smile, Ray felt as if his knees were going to give out. Instead he broke into a jog and reached Turnbull as he was standing to his feet. He put a hand behind Turnbull's neck and pulled him close, taking a long time to kiss him, heedless of anything else going on around them. When he finally pulled away he wrapped his arms around him and they rested their foreheads together, Turnbull returning the embrace.  
"Ray, we're alive. We're alive."  
Ray grinned. "Yeah, we are."  
They didn't notice Kneller sitting across the street on a park bench, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. They didn't notice him stand, put his hands in his pockets, and disappear into the bustling city.


End file.
